


Sacrifice in the Buffyverse and SPN

by yourlibrarian



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Meta, Sacrifice, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 00:36:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6730153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric Kripke has mentioned more than once how he'd like Supernatural to be more like Buffy, at least in terms of capturing the same audience.  Since I've been rewatching AtS S3 and S4 these past few weeks, the themes of sacrifice and loss have come up repeatedly, as they tend to do in the Whedonverses.  The timing made me think about how differently these issues are handled in both shows.  Moreover it made me wonder if part of the reason for the difference doesn't also have some bearing in how fans themselves, and their reactions to the storylines are handled by the creators.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifice in the Buffyverse and SPN

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted August 27, 2007

Eric Kripke has mentioned more than once how he'd like Supernatural to be more like Buffy, at least in terms of capturing the same audience. Since I've been rewatching AtS S3 and S4 these past few weeks, the themes of sacrifice and loss have come up repeatedly, as they tend to do in the Whedonverses. The timing made me think about how differently these issues are handled in both shows. Moreover, it made me wonder if part of the reason for the difference doesn't also have some bearing in how fans themselves, and their reactions to the storylines, are handled by the creators.

I think the issue of sacrifice is one that is raised fairly early on in BtVS. In the very first episode the issue of duty and its attendant costs is one debated between Buffy and Giles, as well as between Buffy and Joyce. Joyce, rightly or wrongly, implies that they have relocated to Sunnydale in part because Buffy had few schools that would accept her after her slaying activities got her expelled. By following her duty, Buffy lost her home and, as "Nightmares" reveals, she suspects her family as well. These personal costs make her want to refuse her duty and lead a "normal" life. She continues to struggle with this issue during the entire season when Slaying cuts into her time for activities, socializing, or dating. In the season finale, it is her very life that is at stake and she nearly refuses to continue. When she sees what the costs are to those close to her however, she feels she has no choice but to make the sacrifice. She does die. Luckily, she's soon back in action, but as future seasons show, she remains ambivalent about her options in life. Again after S2 she tries to leave slaying, only to return to it when it becomes obvious what the cost to others would be. In S3 she hopes to take a break from slaying in favor of college once Faith appears. It's the last time she seems to believe that though, and finally realizes the sacrifices must continue if she is to help others.

The start of SPN would seem to show that loss and sacrifice are two different things. Sacrifice is intentional. Loss is accidental. The episode begins with the Winchesters suffering a loss. In fact, presuming the YED was telling Sam the truth at the end of S2, Mary's death was completely accidental. It was only Sam that the demon was after, and the rest of his family needn't have been affected at all, especially since Sam's abilities wouldn't begin to reveal themselves until he was likely to be out on his own. In the case of both Buffy and Sam there is a certain mystical randomness in how they were singled out at all, but the issue of choice figures very prominently as a difference between the two. Buffy is called to slaying early on, when she is 15. However there is nothing forcing her to develop or implement her abilities. She is persuaded to do so by her first Watcher. It is only after Buffy has suffered the fallout from this decision that she attempts to move away from it. 

In Sam's case there is less choice involved. His family has suffered loss before he could have implemented any kind of action. And even once his abilities surface, they impose themselves on him in a way he can't ignore. His visions are painful and frightening and there is no one to explain them to him or guide him. He tries to follow up and help people in part as a way of understanding what is happening to him -- to allay his own fears. And just as Buffy resists telling her mother and others about her slaying because she fears their rejection, Sam also worries about the effect his supernatural abilities may have on others. Dean is afraid of him, even though he denies it to avoid further alienating his brother. He also fears _for_ Sam, and the danger it may pose to him if others discover what is happening. In Sam's case his powers are, so far, something separate from the job he does. To Buffy, they are not only an asset, they are the very reason she is in her line of work at all.

However Buffy and Sam do have something in common, in that they weren't interested in fighting the supernatural, but rather were guided (or even forced) into it by others. By the time Sam's abilities manifest, both his father and brother have trained him to take up a life of doing their very specialized work. Unlike Buffy, he is not separated from his family by doing so, but like her he is separated from most people. Buffy ends up including friends in her work and eventually receives the acceptance of her mother and sister. Sam and Dean eventually learn they are less alone in their field than they thought, and start working with others. Sam learns he is not the only one whose life has been disrupted by the YED. While Sam and Buffy suffer a disassociation from the rest of society, each has a support network in place that they can rely on. 

The support network is where interesting comparisons come in. Sam relies enormously on Dean, especially after their father is out of the picture. Buffy, despite her repeated insistence about being isolated, relies quite heavily on Giles, but he also leaves. Instead, season by season, she comes to depend most heavily on Willow. And in terms of what they are willing to sacrifice, Dean and Willow are cut from the same cloth. Both are willing to go to any means to achieve their ends. 

At the end of SPN S2, Dean has several times proved that it's going to take more than a threat to others for him to kill Sam. Like Buffy, he is hoping he never has to be forced to take that route. However, the blood on Sam's hands is not his responsibility. In BUaBS Sam was possessed without his knowledge and killed before Dean knew or was able to do anything about it. (Although the episode suggests that Sam had been possessed for some time and Dean had, for whatever reason, failed to realize it and act on it). His behavior once he knows, however, would suggest that it wouldn't have mattered. Dean may very well be willing to sacrifice Jo, and is at pains to help Sam cover up his crime. As a lot of SPN darkfic has suggested, there may be no horrors Dean is not willing to let occur if the alternative is to kill his brother. It's not clear in "Croatoan" if he plans to kill Sam either, simply that Dean himself is willing to die.

Dean is never really forced to make this decision again. Rather, he's forced to confront Sam's death at another's hand –- again a matter of loss, not sacrifice. Even the plan he hatches doesn't seem to be too risky. Ten years with Sam is no less than he might have anyway, given the dangers of his job. A future in hell isn't something to look forward to, but Dean feels he's in hell already. He doesn't do it, however, to save the world. In fact, his effort to do so is quite in spite of what needs to be done. As Bobby points out to him, they need to accept Sam's death and turn their attention to the immediate problem of what the YED is about to do. Dean though, is ready to let the world end, even though Sam's life no longer hangs in the balance. One could also argue that Sam's resurrection is not necessary for the YED's defeat, and since they didn't know what would happen, it might have been for the best rather than having Sam used against them. Dean was completely indifferent however to anyone else but himself (or perhaps Sam). 

Similarly in S5 and S6 of Buffy, Tara's loss is unendurable for Willow. Willow admits with some guilt in S5 that she is focusing her attention more on restoring Tara to herself than she is in helping Buffy figure out how to save the planet: this even though Tara is not dead, and the matter is not as urgent. Buffy, however, finds this reasonable.

WILLOW: Well, I do sort of have one idea, but, last few days I've mostly been looking into ways to help Tara. I know that shouldn't be my priority --

BUFFY: Of course it should.

Willow's priorities are completely backward. If she helps Buffy defeat Glory, then she, Tara and everyone else will live. If Glory succeeds, whether or not Willow has found a solution for Tara's condition is largely irrelevant. Luckily for them all, Giles makes the hard choices, and Buffy makes the sacrifice. In S6, when Tara is killed accidentally, Willow does more than sit and mourn while a crisis looms. She is willing to go to any lengths for revenge. Perhaps Dean learned to prioritize his own interests from his father. Willow certainly showed she had things in common with John Winchester.

SPN S2 ends much as S1 did -- a temporary victory with Dean's life hanging in the balance. Both times, the Winchesters parlayed strategic defeat for personal gain. At the end of S1 Sam had the choice of sacrificing his father in order to kill the YED. He chose to save his father. Then John sacrificed himself, but also the Colt, to bring Dean back, leaving his son alive but weaponless to finish the job, and uninformed as to what dangers may be ahead. At the end of S2, Dean completes this family trifecta when he makes a personal choice over a strategic one. The YED is dead, but many demons have invaded and many more people will die as a result. 

Perhaps much of the difference between the two series comes from the initial motivations of the instigating characters, by which I mean Giles and John. Giles was raised in a family of Watchers and for him the job, while a choice, nevertheless is as much of a calling as it is for Buffy. He says himself: 

GILES: But I have sworn to protect this sorry world, and sometimes that means saying and doing... what other people can't. What they shouldn't have to.

John, however, has done no such thing. In fact, even though he has spent nearly half his life hunting ghosts and demons, he sees it as a finite mission, fueled by his own personal vendetta. 

JOHN: No, Sam. I want to stop losing people we love. (He starts to get upset) I want you to go to school. I want, I want Dean to have a home. (He turns away, in tears) I want Mary alive. (He turns back to them) I just... I just want this to be over.

Helping people may have become the family business, but this is more a side effect of what has happened than a calling. And unlike Buffy, who very much wants to take on different roles and a life away from slaying, Dean at first feels that hunting is all he has. He does not feel he has Sam's options. And Sam, of course, not only attempted to leave the family business, but says clearly he wants to leave it again once his own vendetta is completed. Also interesting is that even the supporting characters in SPN who are involved in hunting, Bobby and Ellen, have other jobs. They do their part, but it is not a calling. The only person whose only life is hunting is Gordon, and his polarized view of the world and obsessive dedication are not cast in a favorable light. 

The one case where sacrifice seems to most clearly be distinguished from loss is in WIaWSNB. Here Dean ostensibly gives up a life of relative happiness and safety to return to his job where he can help others. Yet it's pretty clear on his return that this is not something he feels at all good about, and even within the Wishverse he confronts his father about the need to give up his life for others, asking why it is his family must make sacrifices. I would argue though, that what Dean really means is how he's had to give up a separate personal life for his family. In the Wishverse Dean is doing well enough, but he doesn't seem to be all that close to his family. It's stated outright that he and Sam are distant, and his mother's surprise in seeing him and the time he spends with her indicates she probably doesn't see that much of him either. By now, Dean doesn't really know how to live any other way but in his family's pocket. I'd argue that his discovery of his old cases and their grim results does less to send him back to hunting so much as it confirms the truth –- that his other remembered life is real, Sam is out there still working the case of the Djinn alone, and Dean is a prisoner. Even though he never says so, there's no way he could reconcile dying in a fantasy world while Sam is left unprotected. 

Returning to Sam and Buffy, it'll be interesting to see when Sam will be challenged with a sacrifice. While Buffy surrendered her life in S1, that of Angel in S2, and her life again in S5 (significantly to save her sister), Sam's challenges have so far proved different. Although he blamed himself for Jess' death, from what the YED told him, chances are he couldn't have prevented it, since his vision didn't make clear to him what would have saved her –- that he leave. At the end of S1 he has the choice of killing his father to kill the YED. He might have done it but for Dean, we'll never know. He was much more ready to sacrifice himself, but he's never been given that chance. By comparison, Giles doesn't try to stop Buffy from going to her death in the one instance where it's clear she will die. That she will surely do so at some point is something he's always been prepared for. Yet it seems that neither Dean nor John seem to see Sam as an active agent of his own salvation, nor does Dean seem to believe that Sam's death will be inevitable. While Sam is afraid of causing further pain and death to those around him, he has little idea what might prevent that short of killing the demon. Whatever John might have discovered never gets communicated to them, and Sam's own attempts smack of desperation -– the hope that through divine intervention or by helping others, he will somehow save himself. It seems not unlike the sort of blind path John may have started out on decades before. It'll therefore be very interesting to see what gets demanded of Sam in S3 as he tries to rescue Dean.

As to fans and their response to the shows, characters, and storylines, Joss Whedon's answer is well known -– give the fans what they need, not what they want. By comparison, the SPN camp seems more concerned with trying to placate viewers and keep them loyal. The philosophies are certainly something Buffy and Sam could relate to.


End file.
